Archaea what do they eat

These single-celled organisms form one of the three vast domains of life, with bacteria representing another and everything else - including all plants and animals - being grouped together as eukaryotes in the third domain. Various archaea species serve many vital functions in keeping ecosystems running smoothly, perhaps none more important than consuming the methane gas that would otherwise wreck marine environments. It's that task that allowed Thurber and his team to confirm archaea are in fact eaten.

Their studies of worms - like the one pictured up top - living near a deep sea cold seep off of Costa Rica showed the isotopic signatures of methane gas. The worms could not have ingested this gas directly - instead, it must have been brought in by archaea that they ad consumed. These worms are the first known "archivores", and it's thought that worms like these use their teeth to scrape archaea off the deep sea rocks.

Because only archaea are methanogens, some scholars, such as John Perona at the University of California at Santa Barbara UCSB , study archaea to better understand the enzyme reactions that go on in methanogenesis. Because of their amazing durability, some archaea researchers hypothesize that these astonishing critters could be flying around on comets or on other planets, such as in Mars soils, awaiting our discovery.

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Username or Email Address. Remember Me. Its acidic waters, which reach degrees Fahrenheit, are home to many archaea, an amazing group of organisms distinguished by their abilities to eat anything and live anywhere. Add to Favorites. Fri Nov 12, am. More Like This. James Fredrick Melnik: Thurber and his colleagues initially were looking at biological life forms at a cold seep in the deep ocean off Costa Rica, when they opened up a rock and found worms living within the crevices.

They found that the worms had been feeding on Archaea, which had, in turn, been consuming methane. They were able to trace the isotopic signature of the methane from the Archaea to the worms. From what they learned from the Costa Rican study, the scientists also discovered that worms of the same family as those found in the rocks consume methane-munching Archaea at cold seeps off northern California and at Hydrate Ridge off the central Oregon coast, west of Newport.

The researchers think the family of worms , the Dorvilleids, uses its teeth to scrape the Archaea off rocks. The consumption of Archaea by grazers, a process coined "archivory" by Thurber in the article, is particularly interesting because the only way it could be documented was by tracing the isotopic biomarkers from the methane.

When the researchers attempted to trace consumption of Archaea through lipid types and other mechanisms, they failed because the chemicals and proteins broke down within the worms.

The deep ocean sequesters vast amounts of methane and researchers believe that Archaea consume a majority of it before it reaches the water column. The role of Archaea consumers now will have to be taken into effect, Thurber said. They found that the worms had been feeding on Archaea, which had, in turn, been consuming methane.

They were able to trace the isotopic signature of the methane from the Archaea to the worms. From what they learned from the Costa Rican study, the scientists also discovered that worms of the same family as those found in the rocks consume methane-munching Archaea at cold seeps off northern California and at Hydrate Ridge off the central Oregon coast, west of Newport.

The researchers think the family of worms, the Dorvilleids, uses its teeth to scrape the Archaea off rocks. When the researchers attempted to trace consumption of Archaea through lipid types and other mechanisms, they failed because the chemicals and proteins broke down within the worms. The deep ocean sequesters vast amounts of methane and researchers believe that Archaea consume a majority of it before it reaches the water column.